There are no detailed descriptions of Picts in battle, but a considerable amount of information can be gleaned simply on the basis of their equipment. The choice of fighting unarmoured, with broad cutting swords and small bucklers, immediately suggests a preference for active, open skirmishing warfare rather than the ‘shield wall’ favoured by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings.
The Picts went to war for a variety of reasons. Cattle-rustling was a time-honoured tradition, while ravaging enemy territory to exact tribute was well tried against the Roman Empire and continued in later centuries. Inter-kingdom politics also played a role and Pictish alliances constantly shifted; former enemies often became allies in the quest for new territory or the defence of their own.
Objects from the Norries Law Horde. 1 and 2 are obviously torcs, and 6 may have been an armband. The sword (5), drawn from memory, is startling in its design but should perhaps not be dismissed as fantasy.
The Picts did fight large-scale battles, often with a high level of sophistication and success. However, the most common military activity was the raid, a short-term expedition whose main purpose was to collect loot, cattle and slaves. Gildas described the Picts and Scots of his own time as raiders who avoided set battle, ‘wandering thieves who had no taste for war ... in perfect accord for their greed for bloodshed’.
The raid held a special ritual significance, and could even be a legal requirement. The ‘first adventure’ of a young lord was an important occasion, where tradition demanded he raid cattle from an enemy to prove himself fit for command, and young, untested warriors vied for positions in the leader’s retinue. As late as 1695 Martin Martin recorded the practice in the Highlands, identical to the crech rig or ‘king’s raid’ practised in ancient Ireland.
Raids could have several objectives, such as headhunting, cattle-rustling, blackmail or kidnapping, the collection of slaves, or plain old looting and pillaging. The choice of targets for the Picts was limited – while there are occasional Pictish civil wars and instances of piracy by the Orkneymen, they are conspicuous by their rarity, and most raiding would have been against foreigners. This means that Pictish raids were probably fairly substantial expeditions, like the mythic ‘Cattle Raid of Cooley’, with participants counted in the hundreds or more.
Surprise was a vital element, so the raiding party would often move at night. They would agree on signals and a plan of action, often leaving a party behind to secure vital fords or prepare an ambush in case of pursuit. Against Roman Britain careful planning and a substantial centralised army would have been necessary to deal with the Legions, after which the raiders would have free rein. In the post-Roman period, however, there was always a chance of interception by an enemy war band, so speed was essential. Unnecessary bloodshed was avoided where possible, to minimise revenge attacks. The most difficult part was protecting the booty on the march back home, as even a successful raid could be quickly reversed if enemy horsemen overtook the slow-moving cattle-train.
Sumptuous Pictish silverwork from the St Ninian’s Horde, Shetland. Metallurgical analysis has shown that most Pictish silver was reused Roman metal. (National Museums of Scotland)
A profitable raid would result in wealth for the leader, who would then distribute the spoils generously among his followers. The importance of the raid to the maintenance of Celtic society is more fully explained in Warrior 30, Celtic Warrior 300 BC – AD 100.
The size of armies of the Pictish period was relatively small. On the founding of Dalriada, for example, ‘three times fifty men passed over in the fleet with the sons of Erc’, while the Gododdin force numbered 300 hand-picked men. In the Welsh Triads one of the ‘Three Invincible Armies of the North’ was the ‘three hundred spears of the Sons of Coel’, and Cunedda’s ‘nine hundred horse’ was enough to drive out an entire population.
In addition to the professional warriors, however, the king could call upon reserves from the lower classes, and sophisticated mechanisms existed for assembling the national levies. The Dalriadan Senchus Fer n Alban records that the Scottish sea-muster was 1,000 ‘rowing benches’, each of which might have represented two or three oarsmen – about the same as the Campbells or MacDonalds were able to put into the field in the 18th century. The Picts were able to call on the mounted war bands of seven kingdoms for cavalry and tribal levies for infantry, in addition to the independent fian bands who theoretically served the High King. The High King of the united Picts was thus probably the most powerful man in Britain, and could well have assembled over 10,000 fighters if necessary.
The Monymusk reliquary or breachbannach of St Columba, a shrine of Pictish workmanship that brought victory at Bannockburn.
Pictish helmets were probably of the same basic post-Roman ridge or spangenhelm design found elsewhere, such as the 7th-century ‘Pioneer helmet’ from Northamptonshire. This reconstruction of the helmet is by Craig Sitch of Manning Imperial.
Before the army set out there would be a feast for the heroes, where meat and drink would be in plentiful supply. Not only did this instil a sense of camaraderie among the band, but it indebted each warrior to the king, and thus spurred him on to great feats in order to ‘earn his mead’. There might be sacrifices and religious services to gain the blessing of the gods or God, as well as divinations – prophesy was an important part of Celtic spirituality, and it is likely that many decisions would be made on the basis of the seers’ visions. A prophesy for success would leave the army enthusiastic and confident; an unfavourable reading might not be enough to abort the expedition, but would certainly have a negative psychological impact.
When on campaign the Pictish army could move swiftly without the need for a large baggage train. Herds of cattle were simply driven along and slaughtered as needed, or stolen from the enemy. The tradition in medieval Ireland and both Lowland and Highland Scotland was for each warrior to carry a bag of oatmeal which could be fried with blood or water, while the meat was boiled in the hides of the slain cattle, so there was not even a need for cumbersome pots. A description of an Irish hosting records how they fed ‘upon herbs and roots, their drink is beef broth, milk, and whey. They let their kine bleed, which being cold they bake in a pan, and spread upon bread. In haste they squeeze out the blood of raw flesh and feed upon it without farther dressing, which they boil in their stomach with Aqua Vita’.
As battle approached there was a great deal of ritual to be observed. According to Tacitus, prior to the battle of Mons Grampius the union of the various Caledonian tribes was ratified by solemn rites and sacrifices, and the Pictish use of sacrifice makes it likely that similar rituals were observed. As late as the 13th century the prince of Galloway made a similar mystical bond with a cateran (unmarried adult male) captain named Gilleruth. ‘They made an unheard of covenant, inventing a kind of sorcery, in accord with certain abominable customs of their ancient forefathers. For all those barbarians and their leaders...shed blood from the pre-cordial vein into a large vessel...and they stirred and mixed the blood after it was drawn; and afterwards they offered it mixed to one another in turn and drank it as a sign that they were henceforward bound in an indissoluble, and as it were consanguineal covenant, united in good fortune and ill, even to the sacrifice of their lives’.
Another common custom was the creation of a cairn, commonly erected over Pictish graves; each warrior would bring a stone and place it in a pile, and afterwards the survivors would each remove a stone, leaving the remainder as a memorial to the fallen – an early description of the custom is found in the Irish narrative The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, an event which occurred in the early 7th century.
The king would be in charge of the overall battle-plan, and the formation would naturally depend upon the enemy being faced, whether they were British horsemen, Roman legionaries, a Saxon shield-wall or a fortified hilltop. The formation on the Aberlemno Stone indicates that the Pictish army was no mere mob, but would have been carefully deployed, taking into account factors of seniority and status as well as military considerations. By the 7th century the totem animal figures of the ancient Celts had, in Ireland, given way to proto-heraldic battle banners, and the Irish annals describe battles where ‘every captain bore upon his standard his particular device or ensign’. If Pictish symbol-stones are indeed proto-heraldic devices, similar banners may well have been used, so each war band would be deployed under their own standard.
The place of the Pictish warrior within his or her unit would depend upon their status. The champions fought in the front line, with lower status warriors further back. As the lines formed up there would be a round of psychological warfare, where the Picts would attempt to intimidate the enemy; a champion might strip off to display his magical tattoos, whirl his weapons and perform ‘feats’ to impress the foe with his agility and skill, or lampoon the enemy and challenge them to single combat. Many Celtic warriors fought under the influence of ‘battle madness’, the dasachtach or miri-cath made famous by Cú Chulainn. While this could occur spontaneously under extreme stress, meditation techniques and narcotics such as henbane might also be used to deliberately achieve the berserk state of mind.
The Viking berserkers and Celtic fianna shared a great many characteristics, including an association with wolves.
(a) A berserker from the Hebridean ‘Lewis Island’ chess set.
(b) A Norse warrior dressed in a wolf-pelt, from a 7th-century helmet plaque.
(c) Wolf-masked Picts from Kettins, Angus.
(d) Dog-headed figure from Mail in Shetland.
Of particular importance were the bards, who would encourage the warriors to emulate the glories of their ancestors, while calling down doom upon the enemy. Pictish bards appear on a number of stones, and were clearly as important to the Picts as they were to other Celts. In Welsh law the bardd teulu was required to sing Vnbeinyaeth Prydain (The Chieftainship of Britain) before battle, while the brosnachadh catha or ‘incitement to battle’ was a vital preparation for the Highland charge, and Highland bards were noted ‘eulogising the fame resulting from a glorious death...as well as the disgrace attending dastardly conduct or cowardly retreat’. Sometimes these songs were prophetic, such as Taliesin’s poem The Battle of Argoed Llwyfain.
Let us carry our spearshafts over the mountain
And lift our faces above the ridge
And raise our lances over men’s heads
And attack Fflamddwyn in the midst of his host
And slay both him and his companions.
Others were reminders of past victories:
Great sovereign, all high ruler
Refuge for strangers, a strong defender in battle
The English know this when they tell their stories -
Theirs was death, theirs was rage and grief
Their homes are burnt, their bodies are bare…
The bards did not fight, but carefully watched the deeds of the warriors; the slightest hint of cowardice would be recorded and immortalised in song and verse, and thus their very presence had a positive effect on the behaviour of each champion.
Scottish deerhounds. These swift and powerful hunting dogs, along with the closely related Irish wolfhound, were famed throughout the ancient world, and are said to have been used as war dogs by the Picts.
When the voices of the bards could no longer be heard, the musicians began to frighten the foe with a cacophony from their deafening war-trumpets. Rather than the ancient carnyx, most Pictish stones show long, straight trumpets or cow horns; the mouth of a looted 9th-century Anglo-Saxon blast horn was found at Burghhead, indicating Pictish use. The use of loud music to intimidate enemies in battle was an ancient Celtic custom, and even in the 14th century the Scots retained the practice, as the chronicler Froissart recorded. ‘The Scots have a custom, when assembled in arms, for those who are on foot to be well dressed, each having a large horn slung round his neck, in the manner of hunters, and when they blow all together, the horns being of different sizes, the noise is so great it may be heard four miles off, to the great dismay of their enemies.’
Like the well-known tunes of the Highland war pipes, battle horns provided stimulus in battle, frightened the foe, and were also a means of signalling to the army, so the Pictish king could issue orders to his troops even over the din of battle.
The purpose behind all these rituals was to ‘psych up’ the warriors for battle, which would probably have opened with a blinding Celtic charge. This is likely simply because neither the Pictish horsemen nor the unarmoured foot soldiers, protected only by a buckler, were equipped for defensive warfare, and so the Picts would generally have preferred an open mêlée where their speed, agility and individual weapon skill could be put to best advantage. Parallels with the charges of the ancient Celts, and later the unarmoured tribes of medieval Galloway and the 18th-century Jacobite Highland clans are obvious.
However, there is also evidence that the Picts did not simply rush blindly into battle, but were capable of fighting in disciplined formations, waiting patiently for the right moment to attack, and carrying out complex large-scale manoeuvres. Dawn attacks are commonly recorded, which required good intelligence, careful planning and disciplined manoeuvring and positioning of troops. For example, around AD 460 the Picts and Dalriadans formed an alliance against the north British king Coel Hen. The medieval Scottish historian Hector Boece recorded the tradition that Coel invaded Galloway and Ayrshire and set up ‘in a fortress prepared in advance’. A deserter from the Scottish forces betrayed the whereabouts of the Pictish and Scottish cattle, and Coel sent half his army off to capture them, after which he could besiege and starve the enemy. The Picts and Scots were alerted to this plan, divided their forces and launched an attack of their own:
Fergus launched a surprise night attack on the British camp, killing the sentries and storming the rampart before Coil knew what was happening: then, while the Britons were trying to fight off the Scots, the Picts raised a terrible shout and suddenly attacked them from behind. Thus the Britons, barely awakened from sleep and unable to rally round their standards or their leaders, were routed. Some, concealed by the dark night, found safety in flight: others, not knowing the country, wandered among twisting glens and steep drops until they were either hunted down or swallowed up by bogs.
The Aberlemno Battle Stone has usually been assumed to represent the battle of Dunnichen in AD 685, and indeed the connection between them has become something of a modern myth, simply because Dunnichen appears, from a modern ‘Celt vs. Saxon’ viewpoint, as a particularly historic battle. However, the nasal-helmed foe are shown all mounted, just like the Britons of Y Goddoddin, while there is not a single recorded example of Anglo-Saxons in Britain fighting from horseback prior to 1052. This makes their identification as ‘Northumbrians’ extremely suspect. The slab itself is a ‘Class II’ Pictish stone, and on art historical grounds is generally believed to have been erected in the mid-8th century, placing it in the reign of Oengus Mac Fergus, a successful warrior-king who could be expected to celebrate one of his own victories. It is likely that Aberlemno actually depicts the great Pictish victory over the Britons of Strathclyde in AD 744.
A fragment of scale armour from Perthshire. (National Museums of Scotland)
The Aberlemno Stone provides some idea of Pictish tactics. In the upper strip a Pictish horseman with a sword is chasing an enemy who has thrown away his weapons. In the centre panel Pictish infantry stand in three ranks to face the oncoming cavalry; the front man has his shield ready and his sword raised, the second rank presents a long two-handed spear which protrudes to protect the front rank, with a shield strapped over his shoulder. The man in the third rank stands with his spear at rest until needed. In the bottom section, two horsed warriors charge each other throwing javelins. This battle, whatever it was, was a victory for the Picts as indicated by the dead mail-coated enemy who has become ‘food for the ravens’. The horsemen above and below probably represent cavalry units flanking the main pike-block.
Most Dark Age armies, such as the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, formed shield-walls with spear-and-shield, but the Pictish pike-block or schiltron as depicted would have been a superior anti-cavalry formation. The sword-and-shield men in the front rank not only gave the spearmen some protection from thrown javelins, but also fended off knife-men attempting to get in under the spears (one method the ancient Celts used to defeat similar Greek formations). The schiltron remained the primary Scottish formation for another 800 years, and featured prominently in both the Welsh Wars of Edward I and the Scottish wars of independence.
The Eriskay pony.
One of the best descriptions of a Pictish-era battle is found in Y Gododdin, a poem by the 6th-7th century British bard Aneurin. Y Gododdin records a sortie by 300 of the most renowned warriors of the day from all Celtic Britain, including Picts, led by the king Mynyddawg Mwynfawr against the Anglo-Saxon stronghold at Catterick. Military actions at fortifications were common features in the wars between the Picts, Scots and Britons, so the warriors were probably not intimidated by Catterick’s old Roman stone walls which were seven-and-a-half feet thick.
The champions of the Gododdin were all mounted, armed with swords, spears and javelins, and supremely confident. The epic poem transmits some of the personality of the Celtic heroes as they set out on the glorious expedition:
Most Pictish horses wear only a pad in the Irish fashion (a), and others appear to be bareback (b), although the Kirriemuir horsemen (c) appear to show a high saddle and stirrups.
A man in might, a youth in years,
Courageous in battle
Swift, long-maned stallions
Under the thigh of a fine lad
Behind him, on the lean, swift flank
His target, broad and bright,
Swords blue and bright,
And hilts of goldwork.
There’ll be not between us now
Reproach or enmity –
Rather shall I make you
Songs in your praise.
The northern Celts were determined to expel the Saxons, despite the formidable odds stacked against them, and Aneurin recorded the fury of the assault.
Wearing a brooch in the front rank, bearing weapons in battle,
a mighty man in the fight before his death day,
a champion in the charge in the van of the armies:
there fell five times fifty before his blades,
of the men of Deira and Bernicia a hundred score fell in a single hour.
He would sooner the wolves had his flesh than go to his own wedding,
he would rather be a prey for ravens than go to the altar,
he would sooner his blood flowed to the ground than get a due burial,
making return for his mead with the hosts in the hall.
The heroes of the Gododdin got their wish; the expedition was a disaster. The northern Celts were probably vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped for attacking such a strong fort, but the pre-battle drinking may also have had an effect. Aneurin wrote,
To Nudd, the son of Ceido
I loved him who fell at the onset of battle
The result of the mead in the hall and the beverage of wine.
The elite of the northern Celts were slaughtered and left to ‘glut Black Ravens on Catraeth’s walls’, an image similar to that carved on the Aberlemno Stone. Of 300 warriors the only one who returned alive was the bard himself, who wrote this magnificent elegy as a lasting testimony to the doomed expedition:
The men went to Catraeth with the dawn,
their high courage shortened their lives.
They drank the sweet yellow ensnaring mead,
for a year many a bard made merry.
Red were their swords (may the blades never be cleansed),
and white shields and square-pointed spearheads
before the retinue of Myynyddawg the Luxurious.
If successful in battle the victorious Picts would pursue the defeated foe with eagerness and scour the battlefield for booty. The enemies’ baggage and cattle would be seized, camp followers enslaved, the bodies stripped of jewellery and decapitated for trophies. Enemy leaders who were captured would be ritually sacrificed by beheading or drowning amid great ceremony. If the victory took place in enemy territory, the surrounding countryside could expect to suffer as well, with the inhabitants enslaved or driven out. Bede recorded such events following the Northumbrian defeat at Dunnichen, when ‘many of the English at this time were killed, enslaved, or forced to flee from Pictish territory’. Technically, all the battlefield loot belonged to the king, who distributed the wealth among the survivors. There was generally a strict division of spoils, with the king eager to appear fair and generous in the eyes of both the bards and warriors.
If unsuccessful, the Pictish host would quickly melt away before the victorious enemy. Although there are plenty of instances where cornered Celtic warriors would fight bravely to the death, a retreat from a losing battle was not generally considered cowardly. Gerald says of the Welsh that ‘although beaten today and shamefully put to flight with much slaughter, tomorrow they march out again, no whit dejected by their defeat or loss’, while the Highlanders had a proverb, ‘better a good retreat than a bad stand’. The alternative was gruesome: in 672 Ecgfrith of Northumbria massacred a trapped Pictish army at Carron, and two rivers were so full of corpses ‘so that, marvellous to relate, the Northumbrians, passing over the rivers dry-shod, pursued and slew the crowd of fugitives’.
Pictish bards playing the harp, cruit and triple-pipes, which utilises didgeridoo-style circular breathing and is still played in Sardinia.
Dark Age Celtic medicine was surprisingly sophisticated, and a wounded Pict had a relatively good chance of survival. The medics, part of the Druidic class, were knowledgeable in herbal lore and capable of reasonably sophisticated surgery such as amputations and trepanation. Tacitus noted that the Celts carried their wounded off the field even during battle, so the women could tend their wounds.
Win or lose, the deeds of the battle were recorded by the bards for posterity. They would praise the great warriors who had fallen, relate the heroic actions of the survivors, and compose plaintive dirges for the slain. If a warrior received the praise of a bard for some heroic deed, his status was significantly increased. Although no Pictish bardic material has come down to us (unless hidden within Highland folklore), the compositions of the contemporary northern British bards are poignant, especially when lamenting a slain hero or a bitter defeat. When King Urien of Rheged was assassinated, Llywarch Hen wrote,
This hearth, wild flowers cover it.
When Owain and Elphin lived
Plunder boiled in its cauldron…
This hearth, tall brambles cover it.
Easy were its ways
Rheged was used to giving…
This hearth, dockleaves cover it.
More usual upon its floor
Mead, and the claims of men who drank…
This pillar and that pillar there.
More usual around it
Shouts of victory, and giving of gifts.
Taliesin’s elegy for Urien’s son Owain reads,
When Owain slew Fflamddwyn
It was no harder than sleeping
Sleeps now the host of broad England
With the light in their eyes
And those who did not flee
Were braver than they had need
Owain punished them soundly
Like a pack of wolves after sheep
Splendid he was, in his many coloured armour,
Horses he gave to all who asked
Gathering wealth like a miser
Freely he shared for his soul’s sake
The soul of Owain ap Urien
May the Lord look upon its need…
When the court of Cynddylan of Shropshire, ‘the bright buttress of the borderland’, was destroyed by the Saxons, Llywarch Hen lamented:
‘Stand out maids, and look on the land of Cynddylan,
The court of Pengwern is ablaze;
alas for the young who mourn their brothers…
‘The hall of Cynddylan is dark tonight,
Without fire, without bed;
I weep awhile and then fall silent…
‘The eagle of Eli; loud his scream tonight,
Sated with gory drink;
the heart’s blood of Cynddylan the Fair…’
‘Dark is Cynddylan’s hall tonight,
With no fire, no songs.
My cheek is worn out with tears.’
‘Silent is Cynddylan’s hall tonight
After having lost its lord;
Great God of mercy, what shall I do?’